JLT Restaurant Awards 2018: Meet the Judges!

Online voting for the
2018 JLT Restaurant Awards
ran from 1 – 31st October 2018 and almost 10,000 JLT residents,
office dwellers, and visitors voted for their favourite Jumeirah Lakes Towers
restaurants, cafes, and bars. The 2018 awards feature 16 publicly voted
categories, plus two categories, which are decided by four judges: Best Overall and Best Newcomer.

Three Dubai-based F&B-industry
insiders are joined by a JLT resident, who we selected from a large number of
applications following a social media “recruitment campaign”.

Meet this the
#JLTdiningAwards2018 judges:

From top left to
bottom right: Courtney Brandt wears many hats. She's an author and a blogger (A to Za'atar). She's also a Zomato Ambassador, What's Cooking UAE host, and a saberer of Champagne. Courtney
is joined by Chef Tomas Reger, the
brains behind Cruet Cooking Consultants and an avid culinary curator. Originally from the Czech Republic, Tomas got his first taste of cooking
assisting his grandmother who was a fabulous cook and supported him in
his decision to become a professional chef. His interest in food led him on a culinary journey from the beaches
of Spain to the fine dining restaurants of England and finally
to the Middle East, where he now calls Dubai home.

Jane Nedanoski, the third member of this year's judging panel, is the Operation Manager at Rhodes W1 at the Grosvenor House Dubai. Jane hails from Macedonia and came to Dubai in 2011 to join Okku. Together with Chef Chef Darren Velvick, Jane also worked at Table 9 and The Croft, before joining Garry Rhodes in Dubai Marina.

The public search
across the JLT Dining Facebook, Instagram,
and Twitter
for a JLT resident to join the rank of JLT Restaurant Awards
judges yielded a large number of applications. In the end, we selected Hershal Ghambir, a marketing
professional with a background in hotels and restaurants, who moved to our neighbourhood
earlier this year and is passionate about all things food, restaurants, and
digital media.

The four judges will
play a crucial role in the final stages of the 2018 JLT Restaurant Awards.
They’ll decide the winners of the Best
Overall and Best Newcomer
categories, but they’ll also scrutinize the shortlist of the 16 publicly voted
categories. The judges will look at guest satisfaction scores, overall concept,
menus, and a number of other factors for the top three outlets in each category
to decide the winners and runner-ups, which will then be announced at the
awards ceremony on 26th November 2018.